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Choice, If You're Gay

Updated Aug. 21, 2003 12:01 a.m. ET

It's not exactly what we meant by school choice. We're talking about the $3.2 million in tax dollars New York is spending to expand a program for gay students into America's "first accredited public high school designed to meet the needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth."

Though the headlines have had a field day playing up the issue of sexual orientation, a lawsuit just filed by a Hispanic state senator exposes the real scandal here: a city public school system willing to deliver choice to a politically influential group while subjecting hundreds of thousands of others to education triage.

The co-plaintiffs in the suit are the Reverend Ruben Diaz, a state senator, and "Jane Doe" -- a mother of four whose children attend public schools in Mr. Diaz's district in the South Bronx. Mr. Diaz emphasizes that his suit has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with opportunity. How, the suit asks, can the city justify spending millions on a gay school with a total enrollment projected at only 170 while leaving many of the one million other New York schoolchildren in the lurch?

Good question. The Harvey Milk School for gays claims a graduation rate of 95%, with more than 60% of its students going off to college. Whatever you think of the idea of a gay school, by any measure we're talking about an education elite. In sharp contrast, a good chunk of New York City's other high school students -- say, the black and Latino students who make up Mr. Diaz's district -- will never see a high school diploma. At the middle school attended by Jane Doe's eldest child, only 13% of eighth-graders test at level for English and only 8.5% for math.

These dismal statistics help explain why Mr. Diaz belongs to a growing species of inner-city Democrats who support school vouchers. In its mission statement, the Harvey Milk School says its purpose is to provide "an opportunity to obtain a secondary education in a safe and supportive environment." Surely all New York kids deserve the same. Only in America's big-city public schools do you get better treatment if you're gay than if you're poor.